TODD SEAVEY
author of Libertarianism for Beginners and writer of/speaker about many other things

Monday, January 4, 2010

DEBATE AT LOLITA BAR: Is Katz's the Best Deli?

This Wed., Jan. 6 (at 8pm) join us (at 266 Broome St. at Allen St. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, one block south of the Delancey St. F J M Z subway stop) for a debate on a matter of great local importance — followed promptly by a field trip to sample the wares of the establishment in contention:

I’ve been reading Aristotle’s Politics (about which, more in this month’s Book Selection entry), and I think he would say the most important question of the evening — aside from how many of the people in attendance will be consigned to slavery and how many must procure their own battle armor — is really what form the audience’s democratic deliberations, if any, will take.

Now, by tradition, the Lolita audience votes on the question at hand at the very end of the debate. And were we a group moved solely by metaphysical speculations — and custom — it might well seem we should adhere to this rule. Yet is it not the case that the demos’s judgment might best occur after empirical investigation — i.e., the trip to Katz’s to taste their various meats and breads, whether acquired through trade, or as Aristotle would consider more noble, personal farming efforts (or possibly piracy, which was apparently legal in ancient Greece)?

Perhaps two votes, submitted for final resolution to a Seavey/Evanchik oligarchy — though not a tyranny — is the ideal form for the debate. (In Sparta, the question might be resolved by combat, and this too may be worthy of consideration, as I am confident Mr. Evanchik would say.) In any case, though: join us, eat something.